


Thus with a Kiss

by Dardrea



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Rumbelle - Fandom
Genre: Don't say I didn't warn you, End of 4B, F/M, I Mean It About the Character Death, Season 4 Spoilers, Seriously this is pretty dark, The Dark One Won, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3903406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dardrea/pseuds/Dardrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever listens to Rumplestiltskin when it matters. So he lost. The heart of The Spinner dies. The Dark One is free. No one else is home. He did warn Regina. Even now though, Belle hasn't given up hope, crazy girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thus with a Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Can a story with this title and this opening quote end happily? 
> 
> Maybe. I'm not crazy about sad endings. 
> 
> In the meantime, this is gonna be bad. This is my OUaT homage to that old roleplaying joke: rocks fall, everyone dies. Note the character death warning above. I mean it.
> 
> (Also, I've got a nasty cold--or I might have finished this Wednesday...I hope this is actually sensible and not all delirious gibberish. I don't *think* I'm running a fever anymore.)

 

 

> This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.
> 
> _Romeo and Juliet_ 5.3.170
> 
>  

 

The final battle was begun as it had been foretold.

When it was done, when the heroes’ compassion failed, when the villains’ courage failed, when Light Magic failed and the vaunted Savior fell, there was only one victor.

The Darkness stood triumphant over all.

And unmourned, a poor, broken spinner lost his heart for good, or so it seemed.

The Dark One took his place at last, free of the restraints of mortal compassion that had held him in check for far too long. He killed the Author first, for being close and for having a power that was obsolete. The Darkness didn’t need anyone to change Fate—the Darkness _was_ Fate—the final, overwhelming fate of all.

He tore half a heart from a king, and his laughter shook the sky while a broken queen fled from the body of her True Love, her son clutched to her, desperate to protect what little of the future might be left.

He let her run. She would never get far enough to escape his reach but it amused him to let her think she might. To let her dream there might be hope for her infant child who would never know his father. But he would never know another year either, so it was of little consequence.

He took the heart from the Savior herself, so full of Light Magic, so full of hope and courage, so weak in the end, so young. He appreciated that he was able to do it in front of the pirate. To crush the heart of another of that man’s lovers before his eyes, mock his impotence, see him shattered now for good.

He could be generous as well. He’d given the evil queen what she’d so long sought: reunion with her long, lost love. What was death but the final reunion, after all? She hadn’t thanked him.

He’d helped her pregnant sister—who’d once held his chain and thought to control his power, she’d suffered for _that_ arrogance before her end—and her outlaw follow her. Let them all sort each other out in whatever came after.

The outlaw’s boy had been whisked away by some scruffy forest man. He’d let them go. He had time.

The Darkness would break everything. Everything the Light had touched would be destroyed. It was his time at last.

For now, to amuse himself, he’d raised the barrier at the town border again. Let the survivors of this first flexing of his power scurry through the ruins of their lives a little longer.

 

* * *

 

He erected a castle, black of course, a cluster of thorny spires piercing the sky and casting long shadows over a shattered Storybrooke. It was much smaller inside than it looked, but the idea that anything could contain the Darkness at all was the real illusion. The castle was only a symbol; the world would be his throne in time. All worlds. He was free and he would wear a crown of darkened stars and trample all nations beneath his heels. He felt his laughter bubble up in that old giggle at the thought of it. What delightful devastation he would bring.

 

* * *

 

He was still aware of her: the old spinner’s tiresome True Love. The woman who hadn’t saved him. Just another hero who’d failed.

Oh, she’d been a threat once, the most powerful woman in any realm, had she but known it, but that time was over now. She was just another victim. Another little spot of light to be extinguished in the coming night.

He watched her approach this new dark castle with little curiosity. She probably thought she could still save him, impetuous and ever optimistic as she was. Perhaps she didn’t understand yet that her True Love was gone. His lips—her dead lover’s lips—twisted in a cruel smile. He would enjoy breaking her. He decided to let her come.

 

* * *

 

Belle’s breath was fast and shallow. She knew what had happened to Snow and Charming. She knew what had happened to Emma and Hook. Regina and Zelena—and her _baby_ —and Robin. Most of the dwarves. The fairies. God help her, she doubted she would ever stop hearing the cries of the fairies; they’d gone on all day and through most of the night.

Everyone who was left was in hiding. Snow was trying to rally the survivors, trying to keep hope alive. It was a doomed effort since she herself could hardly last a quarter hour without falling into tears for David and Emma.

Above Belle’s head, spiraling over the castle, a pair of dragons patrolled the sky. She’d been watching them for hours while she’d made up her mind. The larger of the dragons kept to the west and the north, the smaller to the east and the south, and their patrols never touched. They were apart; within sight, but ever apart.

She hadn’t been certain that she’d be able to get into the castle—her Rumple had never needed doors—but in the shiny black stone of the towering castle she found a humble servant’s entrance.

She took a deep breath and pulled her jacket, really one of his jackets, closer around herself. She had promised him forever once and it was time to make good on her promise. She didn’t bother to knock. He would have made the door for her, and as she expected, it opened easily at her touch.

It was dim inside, and so very cold. A single candle burned in the middle of a rough kitchen table that reminded her of the dark castle. The hearth was cold and there was no stove. Dark and cold and empty.

She took the candle and continued.

Rumple had favored color, even in his dark castle, rich color and texture, and though it had been dark it had felt alive to her. It had felt like him, her wild, self-loathing love with his artist’s eye and craftsman’s aesthetic full of strange ways and hidden beauty.

This castle had none of that: no color, no warmth, no life. It was just shadows and stone, utterly barren. It didn’t take her long to find the throne room. She should have guessed it would be a throne room.

Her heart caught when she opened the door and saw him there. She’d expected the imp she’d fallen in love with in the Enchanted Forest, but although he was dressed in a dark approximation of his old clothes, his dragon-hide leathers, all black, like the castle, with no color at all, it was Mr. Gold’s human face he wore. Smiling, watching, his hand propped on one fist, his elbow curled on the arm of his throne.

When she let herself in, heart pounding, hardly breathing, he stood, and she wanted to run, though she couldn’t have said whether she wanted to run to him or away. He looked younger. He looked happy. Years of care, fallen away. Triumphant. At last in possession of all he’d ever wanted.

“Belle!” he said, his voice ringing out in the empty throne room, warm and deep and happy. He held his arms out as though for her to run into them.

“Please don’t,” she whispered, wide-eyed, panicked, pinned to her place like a small animal caught in the gaze of the hungry serpent. She hadn’t wanted this. Perhaps she should have anticipated it, but she didn’t want to die while he watched her and pretended to be her husband. She couldn’t look into that empty mask, twisted into a mockery of her Rumple’s love.

“Belle—what’s wrong?”

If she closed her eyes she could almost believe it. Almost let herself trust the warmth of his tone—the only warmth in this awful place—the gentleness, the welcoming words.

But she couldn’t back away when he approached. She couldn’t decide if it was his power or her own weakness that kept her still for his touch—so cold! His skin was like ice!—even when she grew faint and feared she would fall if his power wasn’t holding her upright where she stood.

His arms wrapped around her and her candle fell from limp fingers, the light abandoning her to his approach; the wick sizzled and was extinguished. He pulled her gently against him, hip to hip and belly to belly in her heels. Instinctively, habitually, her arms went around his waist. She could hardly breathe. She wondered if she were dying. Could he be killing her already?

Her eyes fell shut as he nuzzled her and hot tears leaked from her eyes and cut burning paths down her face. She shuddered at his kiss, soft, below her ear. The trail of his lips along her face to the side of her mouth where he drank her tears with a happy sigh.

Finally he pulled away, still smiling down at her, and she met his eyes, too proud to keep her own closed as she faced him.

“So you do understand,” he said, with Rumple’s toothy smile, and he brushed the rest of her tears away with a finger—then lifted it to his mouth and licked them away there too. But the cruelty in his eyes as he watched her made her imagine it was blood, her blood, and soon, that he would be licking from his hands.

“My clever girl,” he crooned. “So brave. So beautiful. What brings you here, I wonder, since you seem to understand that your beloved is indeed, well and truly gone?”

“A—a deal. I want to offer—”

He laughed, deep, belly laughter that she could feel everywhere she was pressed against him. “I have everything, my little librarian. My little maid. I quite literally hold the world in the palm of my hand—”

She shuddered, because she could feel it. He wasn’t just here in the body of her husband; the Dark One’s presence filled the room, the castle, Storybrooke itself. She very much feared that even if she were outside Storybrooke she would feel him there too, the spreading shadow of a terrible doom released from long imprisonment. The towering crest of a flood that had surmounted all walls and was coming to wash everything away.

“—what do you have to offer me?”

She licked her lips. “Myself.”

He laughed again and gave her a squeeze. “But I have you! Right here in my arms. All mine. You’ll have to do better than _that_.”

“I promise you myself, willingly. A willing partner in whatever you want to do…to…me.” She couldn’t hold his gaze, not through the flash of interest that kindled there.

“And the cost to me for your indulgence? How much do you expect me to value your free will, _dearie?_ ”

She flinched.

“Henry,” she said softly, her voice breaking. “Please, Henry is his grandson. He’s all that’s left of him now. Let him go.”

“Oh I don’t intend to let anyone go, I’m afraid. It’s only a matter of time—”

“Then give him time!” she persisted. Her hands went to his shoulders, clutching at him as she would once have clutched at Rumple. “What’s a lifetime to you—”

“Longer than I intend to give anyone. I might be willing to grant him…a year.”

“A year! No, please, twenty then, you’ve waited so long—”

“A year and a half,” he said, starting to look bored.

“Five,” she said quickly.

“Five?” he said. He paused, like he’d been on the verge of arguing when something had occurred to him and changed his mind. His mouth stretched in a terrible smile and she knew there was some trick in it but that was fine.

“Alright—five years for the grandson of my old…host. In return for your willing and enthusiastic participation in absolutely anything I wish to do you.” He punctuated the last of those words with a series of playful taps to her nose and a rising tone to his voice. It reminded her so much of Rumple’s tomfoolery when they’d first met that it made her heart clench again and almost distracted her from the wrongness of what she was promising.

“Yes. It’s a deal,” she said.

He snapped his fingers and giggled. “Done. How amusing. Why don’t we start now?” He set his hands on her shoulders and stepped away, letting her breathe for the first time since she’d entered the throne room. He turned her towards the door and rested his chin on one of his hands, so his head was alongside hers.

He wiggled one finger ahead of them.

“Go out that door and up the stairs to the right. The second door to the left. I will expect to find you waiting there—out of your clothes and ready to play!” he shrilled. He turned his head and pressed a smacking kiss to her cheek before releasing her with a light shove.

She didn’t turn to face him. She was comforted by his familiar manner and she didn’t want to see his mockery if it was entirely false or let him see her awareness if it wasn’t.

“May I—” she hesitated. “May I at least clean up first?”

“Oh, I like that,” he murmured. “Bathed and perfumed and ready for me. Like a sacrifice. I think this is where I’m supposed to say ‘prepare her!’ ...But there’s no one here but the two of us, so I guess you’ll have to take care of it yourself.”

She didn’t have to turn and see him to know he was probably posturing somehow, some melodramatic pose to match his words. This felt so familiar she couldn’t decide if it was a relief or a horror. But it made her feel brave. The Dark One was with her there, the Darkness had been triumphant over her lover’s heart—but maybe he wasn’t completely gone yet? Pretending would make what she was about to do easier, anyway. If there was any chance it was true—well it was really the only chance.

She clasped his jacket close again and kept her head high as she left. He didn’t speak again and she closed the door on the throne room in silence, only just able to keep herself together as she walked up the stairs.

The room he'd directed her to was as empty as every other room she’d come to. Spartan, dull. The architecture was grand enough but it was so empty, so monochrome, so unlike her Rumple, hedonistic even in his misery.

There was a bed, large enough for a family of five lying side to side, thick black and gray blankets piled high.

There was a tub of steaming water.

On the wall opposite the bed, hung in a place of honor, was the dagger, hidden no longer. Her heart plummeted. Perhaps it really was too late. He had no fear of the dagger, no worry of being controlled…and why should he? This Darkness felt too big to be contained by any weapon or trick left to the world it would soon consume.

She could feel it here as much as she had felt it in the throne room. As much as she’d felt it in the shadow of this new dark castle. As much as she felt it in the midst of the refugees. Rumple’s body didn’t hold it anymore, it only gave it a place to concentrate, a place to focus.

What hell might she have consigned Henry to, to live five years in the world this thing would create after everything else was corrupted and destroyed?

She stroked the blade briefly, where her true love’s name was no longer written. Where it was smooth and unmarked as though no name had ever marred it though she knew there had been many.

She’d failed her love. Or they’d failed each other. Still, this all seemed an unnecessarily extreme consequence.

She took his heavy coat off, shivering in the instant cold she felt without it, but still taking the time to fold it tenderly and set it out of the way in one corner far from the bed. She was quicker and less gentle with the rest of her clothes, glad enough to slide into the hot water waiting in the tub. On a little table beside her there was a rough sponge and a crystal vial of perfumed soap and she made use of both, scrubbing her skin until it shone pink with her distress.

Her heart pounded so fiercely she could hear her own blood whispering in her ears as she bathed. _You’re too late. You failed. You’re too late._

If he was really gone, really truly gone, she’d know. She’d live in an even greater darkness than the Dark One had brought, like Snow, empty-eyed and stone-faced, clutching weakly at her son, grief too deep for words, only wordless wailing when she thought no one else could hear, or a toneless whine when she couldn’t hold it in any longer. Surely if Belle didn’t yet feel that maddening loss, surely it meant there was still hope.

She stood, but found there were no towels and her discarded clothes had vanished. She shot a panicked look at the corner where she’d left the coat and felt her eyes prickling with tears again to see it empty. Even that was gone.

It was freezing and there was nothing to cover herself with but the blankets on the bed. If he hadn’t taken the coat she might not have dared, but the dagger was the only thing left that connected her to Rumple. So she dashed across the room and took it down from the wall, carrying it carefully with her to the bed where she slid under the covers.

Even the blankets were cold, and she shivered for a bit in the dampness and chill until her own body heat began to warm her and at least the covers were able to trap that and comfort her a little.

When she was warm enough that she’d stopped shivering she held the dagger out of the blankets to look at it again. Wondering if she could will it to show her his name. Running her fingertip over the blade as if she might still feel what she could no longer see.

“I’m afraid that little bauble won’t do you any good, dearie. Not anymore. Your days of using it against me are over.” His voice was high and gleeful.

She winced and let her hands and the dagger fall to the blanket so she could watch him come to her.

He giggled, and it was strange to hear the imp’s voice and mannerisms from Gold’s human face. “But worry not! We can still find some use for it,” he said, rounding the bed.

His clothes vanished at a casual wave as he lifted the covers and slid in towards her. She averted her gaze. It felt wrong to see him like this. His body perhaps, but not him. The crying started again at the feel of his hands lightly grasping her. His body sliding over hers. He took the dagger from her loose grip and she allowed it, her breath catching on a sob.

The tip of the dagger pricked the base of her neck. “Oh, no my dear. Your tears are far too lovely to waste. Look at me while you cry.” A little pressure, just a single startling flash of pain and she could already feel the blood welling where the dagger had pierced her skin.

But she’d made a promise and she forced herself to meet his gaze. He smiled, his eyes all darkness—and licked the little smear of her blood coloring the silver blade, just as she’d imagined his licking her blood from his hands earlier.

“Ohhh,” he crooned, stroking the side of her face with the flat of the dagger. “It seems you’re having a hard time already, and I haven’t even really begun yet. How difficult this must be for you!” He leaned closer. “Here, give us a kiss,” he mocked, in a strange accent, and moved in before she could react.

She tasted her blood on his soft, familiar lips, salty and strong, but she moved into the kiss with all the desperation in her. It had almost worked once. If she couldn’t make it work again she had no doubt she’d soon wish she’d just waited outside with the rest and accepted her end when it came.

His forehead pressed against hers and he levered his lips a small distance from the kiss. “Belle—” he murmured.

His skin smelled like stone. Damp. Lifeless. Like a gravestone.

She choked on a sob and he laughed.

“—sorry, I’m afraid that was a no-go. Shall we try again?”

He laid the dagger on the pillow beside her and caught her hands in his, raising them above her head in a grim imitation of many of her nights with Rumple, his hips pressing into her belly. He was soft. She didn’t know what that might mean. Was The Dark One even capable of functioning like a man? Or did he just require more and different stimulation than a woman’s body pressed against his?

She shook her head, suddenly fierce. No. She hadn’t fought so hard and endured so much to abandon her love to the darkness, ever.

“Rumple, darling, I know you’re not gone yet. I know you’re there—”

He laughed again. “Here it is. I knew you were holding on to that ridiculous hope—”

“I don’t care what it says, I know you’re in there. I can feel you…Rumple, I can feel you. I know you haven’t left me yet and I…I won’t give up you again. Not this time. Please—”

“So melodramatic!”

“Please, Rumple, my love—” She was choking on her tears. “Please! Please come back. Come back! Rumple…” Her words were lost in her sobbing, in pleas and choking breaths. Her vision blurred with stinging tears that trailed down her temples and into her ears, dampening her hair.

It couldn’t be so hopeless as it seemed. She’d always believed in hope. Even with ogres at her door. Even in the clutches of The Dark One. Even chained in Regina’s tower. Even now.

“…Belle…”

This was different, and even with her own cries so loud and her own tears muffling her hearing she could tell the tone of her True Love’s broken whisper.

She cried louder. “Rumple!”

“God, Belle, why are you here? Why would you—”

 _Yes, tell him quick, dearie. It seems you’ve raised a ghost but don’t get too excited. It won’t last. One last twist of the knife. I should thank you really._ How _amusing._ The Darkness spoke from all around her. Not Rumple’s voice, but a deeper, older one.

Her Rumple’s hands released hers and tenderly tried to brush the tears from her face, trembling so much she could feel it through her whole body, which had melded to his, recognizing him even before her mind had. She turned her cheek into his touch and caught sight of the dagger still beside her on the pillow. His name was clearly scrawled across the blade.

“I came for you!” she swore. “I love you. I don’t care where you are or what else thinks it holds you, I love you. I promised you forever and I meant it. I won’t leave you here like this.”

She leaned up and kissed him, and this time it was her True Love who met her kiss. She gave her all to him, all her love, all her hope, all her faith in the man he had always been in her eyes.

She didn’t know if he saw the dagger she raised above his back.

The Darkness did, and screamed, an ear-shattering screech, but she used her startlement and terror to give her arm more strength, to bring the blade down hard and strong, to slice through flesh and even bone as the hungry weapon had done often before in its long, long existence.

She’d been afraid it wouldn’t be long enough or she wouldn’t be strong enough to drive the blade through him and into her own chest as well but she felt it pierce her like a spear of lightning followed by the swift deluge of their mingling blood.

“I love you,” she whispered again, holding him tightly, joined more intimately now than they ever had been before. A few breaths, a ringing in her ears, and there was nothing more.

 

* * *

 

If the tired old world had ever really been new it would have felt like this: soft grass below and a warm gentle rain over bare flesh.

And if any story told by man or woman were true it would have started like this: with two bodies pressed together in a tangle of limbs that didn’t know themselves.

Belle blinked. There was only sky above her. Clouds and that lovely warm rain that seemed to clear away her strange memories. She lifted her hand with its odd weight. For a moment she didn’t recognize what she held, the black hilt of a weapon—bladeless now.

Could the memories be true? She released the useless scrap of metal and leather and patted frantically at her chest, finding a new ridge of thickened scar tissue almost centered between her breasts. As quickly, she slapped at her True Love’s back, finding a matching ridge there.

He sputtered and sat up off of her, absently raking his hair back from his eyes. His chest bore a scar as well. When they were pressed together their scars would match up, marking the course of the weapon that had made them, from his heart to hers. “What—what happened?”

“I don’t know. Shouldn’t…don’t you?” She looked from his beloved face back at the cloudy sky. It was already beginning to clear in patches, showing a brilliant blue behind the gray. “Is _this_ The Dark Vault?”

He shook his head and she was briefly distracted by the sway of his hair. She’d missed so much about him. It felt like ages since they’d been together. It felt like…another life. She reached out to tangle her hand in his hair, smiling, only half listening to his answer to her question. “No. This is definitely not The Vault. I think…we’re still in Storybrooke?”

 “In Storybrooke?” she echoed, though her words were spoken absently as she was sitting up and moving closer to him. Her nearness distracted him as well. “Rumple—” she whispered, and then laughed and threw herself at him. He caught her, laughing as well and the embrace turned into a kiss that felt like the first.

“Can this be real?” she asked him, not truly caring, as long as they were finally together.

His smile brought out the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and lips. “I think—I think it is. True Love’s kiss, True Love’s _sacrifice_ —” He nodded his head towards the discarded hilt of the dagger. “I think it broke the power of The Dark Curse. Wherever The Dark One went, it’s not here anymore.” He paused and blinked, his voice low. “It’s not in me—or you. The dagger…it’s broken.”

“And we’re alive?”

He squeezed her, not seeming to entirely believe it himself. “It appears so.”

“Isn’t this a charming reunion,” an angry voice sneered.

Maleficent, in her human guise stood before them.

Belle felt sure she should have been more worried but she couldn’t manage it. Only now she noticed that though she and Rumple sat in a circle of the greenest grass she’d ever seen, ringed in a rainbow of feathery foliage and strange blossoms, they were actually in the middle of Main Street. The buildings around them had been leveled by The Dark One after he’d broken free and the verdant plot of land where they now rested had been raised above its surroundings in a little hill that had hidden the destruction from her immediate attention. They were sitting where the new dark castle had briefly stood.

“Nice to see you’ve come back to yourself, dear,” the dragon-witch said to the spinner, raising one hand. “A shame you won’t get to enjoy it any longer than this.” Fire kindled in the cage of her fingers and quickly swirled around her hand, engulfing it. “Good bye, Rumplestiltskin,” she said, and flung the fireball at the two of them with a cry.

Rumple reflexively tossed out his own hand and a flash of white light swallowed the fireball before it could touch them. He stared at his hand in confusion. “Light Magic?” he murmured.

Belle giggled and hugged him, not hesitating to put her back to Maleficent. “You’re surprised?” She murmured against his neck, kissing him there. “I’m not. Over three hundred years of magic was bound to leave you with something. And without the Dark Curse poisoning you, of course it would be Light Magic now.”

“God, you two are disgusting. After all you did, how can _you_ get your—”

Belle finally turned in Rumple’s arms like a virago. “After all _he_ did? You mean under the curse? You mean when his heart was dying and no one tried to help him? You mean when he was warning everyone away; warning us all what would happen when his human heart died and left only The Dark One? You mean when Regina tried to take advantage and—”

“Belle, love, hush,” he whispered soothingly, holding her tightly.

She shot him an annoyed glance and found him smiling down at her indulgently. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.” He waved his hand in that old familiar manner, but instead of purple or red, a swirl of pale, golden smoke spun around the two of them and left them both clothed, which she regretted, although his sense of fashion had clearly not vanished with The Dark One and her new dress and his new clothes were both comfortable and flattering.

He gestured towards Maleficent and waved again and Belle craned around to see what he’d done.

When the golden smoke cleared the dragon-witch fell to her knees. “Lily!” she cried, reaching out to gather her limp daughter into her arms.

“She’s fine,” Rumplestiltskin promised gently. “She was knocked unconscious when the two of you fell from the sky, but she’s fine. Not even a lump.”

Belle looked at him again, smiling a little.

“Oh, god, Lily. Sweetheart, please wake up—please!” Maleficent continued as though she hadn’t heard him, only quieting when her daughter stirred.

“Mo—mother?” the younger woman said, still in a daze.

Maleficent hugged her, her breath catching, her body still shaking with silent sobs.

“I’m okay, mom. I’m…I’m okay,” Lily said awkwardly, patting at her mother’s shoulders.

Rumple stood and helped Belle to her feet beside him. He’d given her a dress more appropriate for the Enchanted Forest than Storybrooke, and smart little slippers with one inch heels and she laughed because she knew her new preference for heels so high they put her almost on a level with his own small height had never sat entirely well with him, though he’d never denied her anything—or even complained.

His brows arched in inquiry but he was smiling back.

There were things that had happened that would never be undone—lives lost, a world permanently changed by the touch of The Darkness.

She and Rumple would do what they could to soothe the hurts of that. To protect and aide the survivors—though Belle still feared for Snow White, with half of her heart quite literally gone forever and her True Love and daughter both dead.

There would be grieving.

But with her hand in Rumple's and the smile that lit his eyes, Belle felt hopeful.

**Author's Note:**

> No one will have read this...I can't even complain, I shy away from character death warnings too. Sigh. 
> 
> If you did get all the way to this end note...thanks for taking the chance! Thanks for reading! Consider tossing a girl a kudos or a comment and maybe checking out some of my other stuff? :)
> 
> [Edit: Okay, I may have underestimated this fandom's tolerance for angst and darkness. We *are* a bunch of masochists, aren't we? Lol. But I guess we'd have to be, what with what canon does to our pair... xD Thanks for reading and commenting! :D]


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